Megacorps in FreeCAL
While each of the MegaCorporations could have it's own wiki entry, the purpose of this one is to detail what each corporation is doing in FreeCAL, and more particularly in San Francisco. The Big Ten Ares Macrotechnology: Everyone knows Ares: they're the guys who do the stuff, right? Ares has long had its enormous fingers in many, many pies. They do home and garden stuff, electronics, all manner of technology (most of the commlinks sold in the UCAS, Tir Tairngire, and the Confederacy have gone through Ares at some point), and they also rent out the Knights Errant, a service of security personnel whose highest ranks are called the Ares FireWatch - the notorious anti-'runner teams. Around FreeCal, they haven't yet delved into the market for technology - FreeCal has that under lockdown pretty well. Instead, the Ares Knights Errant are popular here - more popular than Lone Star, even. Also, Ares does major land development in the north of FreeCal, though the south is left to Horizon. Shiawase Corporation: Shiawase is known primarily for doing even more than Ares. Shiawase is the oldest of the Megas, and they've had a lot of time to spread out. Primarily they focus on consumer goods in the area. They make foods, own land, produce household goods and everything else. Shiawase also gets it done in supplying the homes they build with energy; they have a booming business in the nuclear power market of the West Coast. Finally, almost every medical facility in FreeCal buys their stuff from Shiawase. The equipment, the training dummies, the surgical room fittings, even down to the gauze. Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries: Saeder-Krupp is run by a dragon. A fucking dragon, guys. You know what they do there? Terrifying stuff. And they do it primarily in Europe. S-K is based almost solely out of Germany, shipping to freakin' everywhere else (they're currently the largest corp in the world) and they handle all manner of heavy industry. That is, prefabricated houses, vehicles, mechanics and mechanisms, and all that manner of thing. While they've been trying to break out recently, it's been slow going. The nearest S-K arco is just south of Seattle. Mitsuhama Computer Technologie'''s: Mitsuhama is one of the two big-dogs in San Fran. Along with Horizon, Mitsuhama has limited the influence of other Corps in the area. As implied by the company's name, Mitsuhama deals almost exclusively in computing equipment and technological research, with some dabbling in magical research and development. In the area around San Fran, Mitsuhama is known for taking charge when others won't. When General Saito (of Nippon Japan, during the 'rogue' occupation) withdrew all of her troops from San Francisco and left the city in some measure of chaos, Mitsuhama dropped in and began to re-establish order. The current governance of San Fran is purely in the hands of the FreeCal government, the infrastructure was put in place by Mitsuhama, and they keep a large portion of power in the area, as well as having a powerful lobbying group for their interests. To the south east of San Fran, Mitsuhama has two arcologies: one is a small arco that's used only for potentially dangerous magical development and training, and a larger robotics-centric arcology, which also functions as a routing point for fine electronics components that are shipped in from Nippon. Of interest to 'runners, Mitsuhama is both loved and feared by the Shadowrunning peoples of FreeCal; they tend to be generous in rewards and protective of successful runners, but intolerant of failure. Furthermore, they have a "zero zone" policy, which means anyone not sporting Mitsuhama badges on the arco is unlikely to leave alive. '''Aztechnology: Aztechnology stays out of FreeCal. The thing they bring to the table in most cases is their expertise in magical technology, and Mitsuhama aggressively guards their market share of that in the Californian area. The last attempt Aztechnology made to break into FreeCal was in 2061: A small shipping platform was established just off the coast of southern California. The platform "sank" "under suspicious circumstances", and "no bodies were 'found'". They haven't been back since. Evo Corporation: Evo Corporation is still an unknown - as one of the newest faces in the AAA level of corporations, they haven't yet been judged. The majority of Evo's finances are dumped into transhumanist researches, a field of studies that consists of nanotechnology, cyber and biotechnology, technomancy and similar studies. Evo does not really embrace the idea of corporate transparency, and so there have been a number of 'runs on the local arco, just over the border in Tir Tairngire. None of that information has made it to the streets, if it's made it back at all. Legends continually spring up about Evo's defenses, and how they consist wholly of human-brained robots and demoniacal trolls souped up on nanobots. These are also unconfirmed. Horizon: Horizon IS. What Apple did with iPod, or Google with the Droid, Horizon does to everything they touch. In more understandable terms, Horizon is the fastest rising star of PR and marketing in the world. They manage major advertising accounts with every one of the Big Ten (including themselves, of course), as well as a huge number of AA corporations. They also control a majority of the netspaces available (that is, they rent domain names, manage sites on the net, and help to promote online banking, video sharing, shopping, etc. - they play the part of Google for the next century). Horizon has a number of holdings in and around San Francisco and the Bay Area. Their business takes up a lot less space than other AAA corps, and so they neglect to establish arcologies, for the most part, instead electing to extraterritorialize parts of town or housing complexes. Horizon owns a large portion of uptown SF, where they have a set of "PR Corporate Offices", which are the face of Horizon to FreeCal. Furthermore, they own several square miles of what is technically South San Fran, and a couple square miles of the Bay itself, which is under construction to become luxury floating lake houses for their upper level management and prospective investors. Horizon's activity in San Fran is mainly marketing and recruitment; other companies will hire Horizon to make the right connections, or hire a large batch of employees for them for some project or another. So virtually every temp agency and job placement program has the Horizon logo on it, as do most of the electro-billboards, advertising blimps and a huge area of netspace. As far as 'runners go, Horizon employs dozens and dozens - the trick is, they're usually just fronting for another company again. They play the middlemen even in underground situations - or at least, other companies have caught wise and started pretending to be Horizon employees (which further gives Horizon an out if they ever get caught). Because of this, it's tough to know when you're really working for Horizon, and when you're just "working for Horizon". NeoNET: If Horizon owns the adspace in the 'net, Neo owns everything else. The "NET" in their name isn't a coincidence: NeoNET virtually built the Matrix 2.0 from the ground up after the '64 crash. Neo doesn't really operate around San Fran... or anywhere else, really. Neo seems to have a few arcos, mainly around Boston, and a number of seemingly unrelated manufacturing facilities scattered around the continent, mainly bought secondhand. NeoNET is the primary source of the wireless Matrix: they own, operate and maintain the servers, broadcasting stations and recording/editing studios that make up the physical reality of the Matrix. In addition to this, the previously mentioned factories range from producing small arms to stuffed animals - just diversifying their portfolio, they say, but many consider this Corp to be a main competitor with Shiawase and Ares. As for San Fran, Neo has a few outlets that buy, sell and repair servers, wireless broadcasting equipment, hardware, cyberware and software to run on all of it. These, however, are more like local shops than corporate areas - Neo just doesn't have the manpower to operate all of these with full Corporates, so they hire locally and rent or buy local shops rather than building their own - think Radio Shack for the wireless world. 'Running against Neo is virtually unknown in this area. There aren't any arcos to steal information from, and everything else they have can be bought easily without resorting to expensive Shadowrunners. 'Running jobs from Neo are a different matter though. Neo wants in on everything, including whatever the other Corps are up to, so they hire on a regular basis to hit up the other Megas in the area. Horizon and Mitsuhama have both taken a zero tolerance policy for those employed by Neo, which has cut down on it some, but the fact is that they pay well for anything top secret, and there's always a down-on-his-luck 'runner to do a smash-and-grab. Renraku Computer Systems: One word is associated with Renraku these days, and that is persistence. Renraku got hit hard before, during and after the '64 crash. While they still own a majority of the Asian and European telecommunications grids and power systems, they don't really have an eye for FreeCal, and are practically unknown around these parts. Wuxing, Incorporated: Another latecomer to the Big Ten, Wuxing is still mainly an unknown. Due to a generous gift from Dunkelzahn, they were able to muscle their way into the top tier of Corps, but nobody really knows how they'll act once they get their proverbial feet under them. What's known about them in San Fran is that they work in chemicals, Orichalcum and agri business around here. Even synthetic food has to come from somewhere, and Wuxing owns the chemical processing plants, the agri land, the R&D and the packaging factories to get the meals to the masses. Most of the low-cost, low-taste food in FreeCal comes from a Wuxing farm or plant at this point, and most of the food in FreeCal is low-cost and low-taste. Their other chemical researching facilities have made great leaps in kinetic reinvestment fiber (for shoes, gloves and body armor), nanomolecular fabrics (for invisibility - like stealth suits) and high-energy capacity ceramics, creating a whole new way to hold power without leakage or danger of chemical spills. Similarly, the Orichalcum rush brought in a lot of money to Wuxing, and they've continually done well with magical materials development. Orichalcum, celestial jade, adamant crystals and the like are all harvested and refined by Wuxing. 'Running habits are still an unknown. The only story on the streets is about the legendary Red Racer crew going in and walking out untouched with over 6 million nuyen worth of adamant crystals, only to get their materials stolen by some small Chinese gang three days later from an uninsured bank owned by the Russians.